Gold

I

The western song ends, wings
of the green river open in grainfields.
Even now, there is only the long
reflection of stars on the valley floor
where we walked in high summer
through all that gold.


II

Love didn’t drown there
with the wild irises and the black
day moths. It just stepped out of the corridor
into a darker room. Your hours
come down to so much prayer,
blues riffs, afternoons at the kitchen table
I will never know of.


III

I still think, at times,
of the last light standing
long in poplars, and that wrenching
awe at your being there

and being there
in my arms
that made the water in wells
dream of darkness.